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Thursday

The last bastion of the Israel critics

“Israel should be criticized just like any other country”. True, and in Israel proper there is, and always has been, a vivid and lively debate from all involved parties doing that just fine on their own, without Swedish derogatory insults, patronizing attitudes and demonizing examples. Matter of fact, by comparison, one hasn’t seen the state of Israel criticize anything even close to the way Sweden handles (or doesn’t) their own internal problems. And problems there are, and increasing problems at that, at this time within Sweden itself.

Sweden as a society, and the established institutions in the country, have been rather obsessive by comparison with criticism towards other democracies, like Russia for instance, and have accused Israel of various “war crimes”. It’s really one of the oldest political techniques in the books; to divide (or rather in this case; divert) and conquer, the focus of attention from one’s own various internal problems. Jews have historically been the perfect scapegoat for many such accusations, and today Israel is clearly the mark. But it’s also simple political mathematics. Since there are about 18 000 Jews in Sweden, and today, after heavy immigration during the last decades, more than 400 000 Muslims, the Jews are clearly outnumbered. And they all have a vote in the elections.

Another good reason for the political parties to print their information leaflets and broadcast commercials in other languages such as Arabic and Farsi (but not Hebrew). So far the Swedish Jews have tried to mind their own business and not stir up problems. So it’s really not that far-fetched to start thinking of a political sell-out for the new immigrant voters, so that the politicians in power will remain in power. Some might actually call such behavior betrayal.

After this short journey one might be naturally inclined to ask if the Swedish population in general is anti-Semitic? Probably not, and it would be wrong to generalize in such a way. On the other hand, have they been misinformed more or less on a daily basis with skewed, flawed and biased anti-Israel propaganda by certain politicians and press establishment? Without a doubt.But regular Swedes probably have, just like other people, usually more personal things on their minds like keeping up with mortgages, taking care of their health problems, getting the kids safely to and from school etc. Since they are not Jews they have no real insight, and they don’t really care that much about what it means to be a Jew in Sweden in the new climate of the new millennium. Another lesson from times of world war II.

…“The human is a daft and comfortable creature, that doesn’t particularly care about what goes on outside her zones. While accidents and hardships, that plagues our own groups, feel like harsh blows, the same incidents, if they happen to another group, perhaps a feeling of condolence, but on the whole it leave us untouched.”…

If the minority of Jews is so afraid that they hide their Star of David necklaces, the very symbol for their cultural ethnicity, what might happen to other Swedes? Signs have already been seen with public slaughter on the altar of political correctness, where school principals have already banned the usage of Swedish symbols such as flags on T-shirts and sweatshirts (but only for ethnical Swedish youngsters, if immigrants proudly wear them it’s OK for some reason) since it might be perceived as “provocative” towards the ”immigrants”, as patriotism might remind of nationalism – which isn’t that far from national socialism, (at least this is how it seemed to some grownup leftist role model logics), and the old tradition of singing the national anthem when greeting the summer before the school holidays was reported, in some cases, banned as well. Of course, there were no similar restrictions regarding “the new Swedes”, i.e. recent immigrants, since that would instantly be deemed racist. When the (non-Jewish) Swedes will start to worry at large is when their own children are being harassed and physically assaulted on their way to school, and when they risk being mugged or gang raped at knifepoint because of their ethnical heritage – then they will really start caring. What speaks for this is the fact that the only visible empathic protest in solidarity from within the Swedish society thus far, regarding the situation for its Jews, has been the Liberal party’s youth section’s Monday Movement , with speakers in Stockholm every Monday, an initiative organized together with the Israeli-Swedish Friendship Association working for Israeli and Swedish Jews’ rights to live a normal – and safe – life.